Deloitte ramping up India ops, to hire 2,000

Paramita Chatterjee, ET BureauSep 4, 2008, 04.13am IST

NEW DELHI: Amidst news of India Inc going slow on recruitments, professional services major Deloitte India is gearing up to ramp up its operations in the country. It is all set to increase its headcount by about 25% and recruit over 2,000 people by the end of this financial year.

The professional services firm is looking at expanding in three broad areas in India, strategy and operations, human capital and technology. It is also planning to draw its focus on building its human resource (HR) specialisation in the country. The firm is currently present in 13 cities across tier I and tier II destinations.

"We believe there is a huge talent pool in the smaller cities and are planning to recruit from there this year," said a senior official of Deloitte India, which has a headcount of over 8,000 in the country.

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, a Swiss Verein, and its network of member firms, which employes over 1,50,000 people across the world.

According to industry experts, it is the current turmoil and volatility in the global market which is prompting the financial services entities to beef up their businesses in India. The firm in the US was recently in news for cutting down around 900 jobs in the junior and mid-level management to reduce costs. "At a time when India is showing a growth rate of 7-9%, it makes sense for the financial services sector to ramp up its operation in the country to de-risk their portfolio," said sources.

The Deloitte member firms generated a revenue of $23.1 bn in 2007. This was an increase of 15.5% over 2006.